CNN Live as Diana Nyad Makes Historic Swim

While American military involvement in Syria has dominated the news for most of the Labor Day holiday weekend, the cable news networks had another exciting story on their hands this afternoon — one of perseverance and resolve — and it was live, at least on one cable channel. 64-year-old Diana Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida, without a shark cage. It was her fifth try. Nyad swam up to the beach in Key West just before 2pmET, 53 hours after setting out from Havana. She had a 3-point message for her supporters at the beach (video below), then was taken by ambulance for treatment.

CNN’s John Zarrella was about 200 yards down the beach. Close, but not close enough to confirm, at first, if she’d made it to shore. “It’s impossible to tell from here,” said Zarella at 1:53pmET. While CNN provided live coverage of the final minutes of Nyad’s swim, and afterwards, Fox News first reported the news at 2:49pmET. MSNBC is not airing live programming today, but instead was in an episode of “Chained to my Ex.”

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